


Nice

by Penthesilea1623



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M, Forbidden Relationships, Varric doesn't understand the appeal of nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 16:10:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4841915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penthesilea1623/pseuds/Penthesilea1623
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was recently thinking about Varric's dislike of Sebastian Vael.  </p>
<p>In DA2 Varric really doesn’t like Sebastian. As far as I can remember he’s the only one of Hawke’s companions that Varric doesn’t like, and indeed openly insults at times.</p>
<p>He does the same thing to Blackwall in Inquisition at first, offering the ultimate insult, that Blackwall reminds him of Sebastian because he's just "so nice". </p>
<p>When did niceness become such a problem for Varric?  </p>
<p>Maybe all that niceness reminded him of someone else. </p>
<p>Crossposted on my tumblr.  Takes place in the "All That Might Be" universe about a year before Varric meets Anabel Hawke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nice

When Varric woke he was alone in the bed, though it was still dark outside. A half smile curved his mouth. Some things never changed. He’d never known Bianca to stay in bed the whole night. Two hours of sleep, maybe three, was the longest her mind would let her rest and then she’d be up again sketching designs, making calculations, writing out plans for who knew what. You’d think after five years with her he’d be used to it.

They were in an inn somewhere between Kirkwall and Tantervale, which was to say in the ass-end of nowhere. Bianca had already been there when he’d arrived. They’d fallen on each other, yanking on buttons and ties, frantically pulling off clothes and boots and letting them drop where they would before falling on the bed together; they’d barely spoken a word. They never did, not at first. The talking came later, when they lay there wrapped in tangled sheets and each other. Then the words would come pouring out, everything they’d missed, everything they’d seen or done since the last time they’d been together, and that inevitably led to more lovemaking until they were so exhausted they fell asleep.

And when he’d wake he’d be alone in the bed.

He sat up and spotted her at the far side of the room, sitting by the open window wrapped in a shawl. There was a lit candle on the desk and Bianca (the crossbow) was next to it, partially disassembled and there were half a dozen sheets of papers scattered haphazardly around, covered in Bianca’s scrawled handwriting.

Varric smiled and shook his head wondering what new modification she’d come up with while he’d been sleeping. She always found something to add, or adjust, or change entirely and when he teased her about it she’d just laugh and tell him that if he insisted on naming the thing after her than he should expect her to be constantly improving it: after all, she’d say with a challenge of a smile, she wouldn’t want him to get bored, would she? 

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, grabbing his trousers from the floor and pulling them on before crossing to the desk to see what she’d been up to. She’d scrawled out notes and diagrams on the back of what he realized were pages from the latest chapter of Hard in Hightown that she must have pulled out of his bag. Typical. He squinted at them trying to figure out what he was looking at. Bianca wrote her notes in a sort of encoded shorthand that only she could fully decipher. Something about the aiming module he thought, but he couldn’t say for sure. 

“Don’t get those out order.” She said without turning her head.

“There’s an order to them?” Varric commented with a smirk. There probably was, at least in her mind.

He’d have thought that would have produced some kind of sarcastic retort but, though she smiled, she didn’t speak. 

He frowned, tossing the papers back on the desk before walking over to the window and sliding his arms around her, pressing his lips to her hair. She leaned into his touch wrapping her hands around his arms as if to hold them there, before turning her head slightly and burrowing her face into his chest. 

Warning bells began to sound in the back of his mind. Bianca had never been one for cuddling or seeking comfort like this. He tightened his hold on her. “What is it?” He asked.

Her family? His? The Merchant’s Guild? The Carta? There was a long list of people who had issues with their relationship, issues that ranged from petty grievances to things that might result in the downfall of one or both of their houses and very possibly in his assassination. 

Bianca was too brilliant a smith to suffer that fate. The Merchant’s Guild would never risk losing the inventions still locked away in that beautiful brain. It was the only reason Varric was still meeting up with her.

She didn’t speak for a moment and when she finally did he thought she was changing the subject. “Were you at the last Guild Assembly?”

“Not by choice, but Bartrand’s been very enthusiastic about my attendance at Guild events lately.”

“Did you meet Lord Davri’s son?” 

Had he? He didn’t pay a lot of attention to names at these things. He knew Lord Davri of course everyone in the Guild did: the man had too much gold to ignore, but his son? Varric opened his mouth to say no, and then a faint memory flickered. “Young kid? Smiles too much? Bit of a pretty-boy?”

He felt her give a small huff of laughter against his chest. “Yes, that’s him.”

“Yeah, I met him. He followed me around like puppy for most of the evening once he realized who I was. Apparently he’s a fan.”

“Yes, he is.” She murmured absently. She turned her head so she was looking out the window again but kept her hold on his arms. “I’m going to marry him.” She said softly.

Varric went tense and then forced himself to relax. “Sure you are.” He said, impressed by how nonchalant he sounded. She done this to him twice before, announced she was getting married, that there was no getting out of it, that her family insisted, that the Guild insisted.

She hadn’t bothered to show up for either of those weddings.

But, he realized abruptly, when she’d told him both of those times she been absolutely frantic, desperate, insisting that she wouldn’t do it, and begging him to run away with her. 

He’d almost done it the last time.

“I’m going to marry him.” Bianca repeated, more firmly this time. 

She wasn’t angry or upset. She wasn’t even resigned. She sounded…calm, serene almost. That warning bell in the back of his head began to go off again, louder this time.

This was different than before, he realized. He dropped his arms to his sides and took a step away from her. “You’re shitting me.” He said. “That… kid?”

She gave a small shrug. “I like him. He’s sweet.”

Varric gave a small snort “What would you do with sweet?” The words came out sounding harsher than he’d intended.

He saw her nostrils flare in annoyance. “Well, the novelty of it might be interesting.” She retorted.

It hurt. He didn’t know why. She was right. He wasn’t particularly sweet, he’d never claimed to be. But her saying it like that? It hurt, and it must have showed because he could already see she regretted saying it.

“We knew it was going to happen at some point.” She said gently.

Had he? Sure. He’d known it since the first time he’d seen her, when she was barely more than a kid herself. He’d walked into the Merchant’s Guild dinner that Bartrand had dragged him to. And she’d been standing there surrounded by admirers, and why wouldn’t she be? Beautiful, charming, apparently brilliant if the rumors were true, and with a spark that seemed to be all but missing in the dwarves these days, the kind of spark you saw on rare occasions in rare individuals and suddenly you’d understand how Orzammar’s Empire had once stretched the length of and breadth of Thedas. 

Bianca had that. 

Like everyone else there, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes from her, and as unlikely as it seemed she’d been just as fascinated by him. They’d scandalized the Guild and infuriated both families by skipping out on the dinner and not turning up again until the following evening. By the time they did return the carefully concealed animosity between their families had been uncovered and displayed for every dwarf in the Guild to see.

Steps had been taken to prevent any further encounters from taking place, steps that included matrimonial plans, for both of them.

They’d managed to avoid it so far but Varric knew she’d had the harder time of it. 

“Shit.” He muttered. He tried to remember the Davri kid more clearly. Bright-eyed, smiling, so fucking eager to please. If he were here right now Varric would have punched him. “Does it have to be Davri?” He asked.

Bianca smiled and the urge to hit the man only increased. “I like him, Varric.” She said. “He’s a good man and he’ll be a good husband. He wants me to be happy. He’s nice.”

“Nice.” Varric repeated scornfully. He couldn’t even deny it. The man positively oozed niceness. You came away coated in the stuff. “You don’t want nice.”

“He won’t try and make me into something I’m not and he has no interest in controlling me. He’ll let me do what I want without asking questions. And he adores me.”

She liked him, he realized. She genuinely liked him. _Shit_. “Everyone adores you.” He mumbled.

She stepped closer and gave him a teasing smile, slipping her arms around his neck and tilting her head to one side. “Even you?” She asked.

His arms went automatically around her and he stared at her for a minute. “Yeah, well I’m an idiot. Of course I adore you.” He finally said. He bent his head and kissed her lightly on the lips and then pulled her closer burying his face in her hair. His eyes prickled with unshed tears and he closed them, hoping to be spared that indignity at least. 

“Nice.” He said with disgust. “You’ll be bored to tears with nice in less than a month.” He warned her when he trusted himself to speak again.

“Then I’ll just have to come looking for you.” She told him lightly. She seemed surprised when he unhooked her arms from his neck and took a step back.

“I may not be the moral paragon your future husband seems to be, but I’m not about to start sleeping with a married woman.” He informed her.

She gave him a knowing but not unsympathetic look. “Oh, Varric. I think we both know that’s a lie.”

He started to deny it and found he couldn’t. He could only stare at her.

Her eyes seemed larger than usual as she watched him in return, unblinking. “I’m not a married woman now.” She reminded him in a voice that seemed a bit less certain than before.

“No.” But something had changed between them and they both knew it.

“Make love to me.” She whispered.

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak and she walked over and took his hand, leading him back to the bed. As they passed the desk he brushed against the papers there and they fell to the floor. She bent automatically to pick them up.

“What were you working on?” He asked, trying to keep things normal.

She gave a small shrug as she put them back on the table. “The cocking ring seemed off. Have your shots been veering left?”

Were they really talking about this? “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I’ll fix it before we leave, but I think the latch needs to be redesigned. Otherwise it’ll keep happening.” She sounded as weary as he suddenly felt.

“Sure.” He agreed, not even entirely sure what it was he’d just agreed to. He took the papers from her hands and put them back on the desk steering her towards the bed again. 

Tomorrow they’d leave the inn and return to their homes. 

She’d marry Lord Davri’s son, whatever his name was, that nice boy, and when she tired of nice she’d come looking for him. 

And, Ancestors help him, he’d be waiting for her.


End file.
